I was 16 when I met a homeless pregnant woman at a community center. After she died, I raised her son as my own. I thought I knew him completely, but years later, my husband found something that changed everything.
I started volunteering at the community outreach center when I was 16.
You know how it is — college applications, the pressure to show you care about something other than yourself, all that.
The center was this converted brick building near the riverwalk, the kind of place that offered free prenatal checkups, donated clothes, and hot meals twice a week.